FourLegged Shellfish
by Twist
Summary: A heartwarming tale of the Patrician trying to make his godson happy, even if it means braving Crazy People That Work With Horses.


**Four-Legged Shellfish**

**(Or, How the Patrician Was Molested by a Horse Named Butt)  
**

Author's Note: I work in a one-person shop and some days it's busy as all get out. Some days, well, not so much. Today was one of those days. So since I have a computer and seven hours on my hands, well, here we are.

And I should state now, for those who don't know, I have ridden horses since before I could string a coherent sentence together and then put it on a page. I grew up in a culture populated by people to whom the absolutely first and foremost concern is the welfare of a large flight animal with a brain the size of a large kiwi. And I have loved and treasured every minute of it; I have become one of them. So, dear readers, when I write about crazy horse people and the things they talk about completely unprompted, God help me it comes from experience.

--=--

Hogswatch had not, historically, been a merry, gift-giving time of year for Havelock Vetinari. His parents had died fairly early on, his aunt never gave him any gifts besides the occasional box of underwear and socks(1) and from the day he went off to the Assassins' Guild at the tender age of eleven, he'd pretty much been his own man. He'd never been entangled in a steady relationship, and he wasn't really the sort for making many friends.

Of course, all this had changed when he'd become an extremely reluctant godfather. Suddenly, Hogswatch became a time when, in addition to everything else he had to do, he also had to consider what might be one of the foremost desires of a child who looked to him less as a religious mentor, as the name 'godfather' might suggest, and more as someone who would allow him to do certain things that, while benign, might also be somewhat . . . frowned upon by his parents.

Case in point, The Shingle Incident(2).

This year, he found himself spending more time than strictly advisable trying to delve the undelvable depths of the young adolescent male brain. At the start, it hadn't seemed so difficult - after all, he'd once been thirteen years old himself, hadn't he? And so he'd considered what his foremost wish had been at thirteen years of age, although since he had ultimately arrived at 'the painful demise of Downey,' it had proved unhelpful. In all truth, any such self-examination was fruitless, since at that age he'd been very different from the young Sam Vimes. He'd been the sort to sneak around, to lurk in corners, without any substantial sort of friends, and who enjoyed reading and a very quiet, subtle kind of mischief that somehow ended up being much worse to sort out than the louder, more boisterous sort. Whereas Sam was outgoing, popular among his fellow students at the Guild(3), clever but not brilliant, and inclined to the misbehaviors that were loud, raucous, and more often than not occurring at 2 am.

So, when Vetinari had decided there was nothing else for it, he'd admitted defeat and asked the boy's mother.

"Oh, I don't know," she'd said, shoving a lump of coal down the gullet of an ill-tempered blue dragon while he stood by, alert for the intestinal rumblings that might precede an explosion. "He's quite into hunting right now, I suppose."

Vetinari tried not to grunt as she nonchalantly thrust the dragon into his arms. He also resisted the urge to drop the thing and sprint from the dragon house, an ability he attributed to spending extended periods of time in Leonard's workshop. "What sort of hunting?" he asked, very pointedly not sounding worried about this. In Ankh-Morpork, you can never be too sure.

"Fox hunting, of course," she replied, prying the dragon's mouth open and pulling a large syringe out of one of her apron pockets. "Just hold him still now, there's a dear. That's where he's been spending weekends these last two autumns - out at Rodney Venturii's country estate. Quite a few of them are involved, so I hear."

"Ah," Vetinari said, going over what he knew about fox hunting in his head. Dogs were involved, which was always a good mark in his book, but so was killing harmless animals for sport, less so. Outside of that, he was uncharacteristically ignorant about the subject.

"From what he tells me, though, it's less hunting these days and more competing, you know how boys are." She thrust the syringe up the dragon's nose and pushed the plunger. Green fluid leaked out of its eye. "With the horses and what not. Jumping competitions and that sort of thing, I'm sure you've heard about it."

"Not really, no," he answered, honestly. While the Patrician traditionally owned a stable full of racehorses, he didn't venture down to them often, on the basis that people that worked with horses tended to be, in his opinion, completely mad.

"Ah well, even you can't know everything," she said jovially, taking the dragon from him and depositing it back into its pen. "I suppose if you're feeling up to it he wouldn't say no to a horse, though."

"A horse?" Vetinari considered this.

"Preferably one that can jump high, I'm told," she shrugged. "He's been asking for one for months, but I disagree with the whole business of hunting and Sam doesn't see the need for one. Sammy insists that coach horses won't do, though. I don't see the difference, personally. Would you mind helping me with Lord Flanteritrite XXVI?"

"Er, I've got a thing, sorry," he said, and excused himself. While many things were preferable to holding dragons for their morning treatments, he wasn't quite sure that going down to the stables he technically owned and talking to the staff there was one of them.

--=--

(1) As is custom for relatives that strive to provide gifts that maximize practicality and minimize fun making.

(2) Of which no more really needs to be said, thank you very much.

(3) Assassins, though in accordance to his fathers wishes, "not the curriculum that'll wind up with him being a murderer with culture."

--=--

The Patrician's stables consisted of a long wooden building that was extremely well kept, despite its years of use. They sat outside the city where pasture for the animals was more available and there was room for the horses to train for racing, or something. He'd only ever been there once, shortly after taking up Office, in order to meet the staff. He'd determined that they were so single-minded that they were of no threat to him, as long as the feed and hay showed up on time, and had never needed to go back. It was a self-governing organization, for which he was eternally grateful, mainly because it meant he didn't have to deal with people like Wendy Venterson.

She had met him when he'd arrived and introduced herself as the barn manager and head trainer. He'd been polite and not mentioned the fact that she had hay in her hair, or that her shirt appeared to be streaked with green slobber. It seemed to be one of those things that . . . came with the job. She'd also been talking at him for twenty straight minutes about the stables, the horses, how everyone was doing (and here he realized she was talking about horses exclusively, the welfare of the other humans involved in the operation apparently being of lesser concern or completely negligible), which horses had been sold recently, which they were hoping to buy, which mares were due to foal this spring and which they were planning to breed and a myriad of other things, some of which he couldn't have explained later because the vocabulary that was used in connection with them was entirely new to him.

She was just about to move right on in to the report on who was due to be gelded when Doughnut Jimmy visited next week when Vetinari finally stopped her. "Listen, I'm sorry," he said, seeing that any attempts to subtly catch the attention of a woman who dealt every day with upwards of thirty one-thousand pound animals was a pointless exercise. "I'm afraid I'm not really deeply involved with horses on a, er, day-to-day basis. I'm looking for a certain type of horse."

Wendy skidded to a verbal halt and her eyes widened. "Oh gods sir, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to waste your time. It's just sometimes we have customers in and they like to know about everything and -" This time she caught herself. "Well, you know." She straightened, plucked one bit of straw out of her hair, and put her hands in her pockets. "So what kind of horse are you looking for?"

He paused. "One that jumps?" he guessed. And then he decided that pretending to know more about the whole thing than he actually did was going to get him nowhere, and shrugged. "I know of a person that foxhunts, but there's jumping competitions too, or something?" he hazarded, watching her expression. She was smiling widely.

"Right, it's a new sport, sir, show jumping, bound to be big some day, mark my words. We've, er. Well." She shuffled her feet. "We don't deal strictly in racehorses here sir, not anymore. The track's flooded with them and Alexander is our only stallion and he's getting on a bit so we don't have as many foals on the ground as we used to so we've started taking on some boarders and some . . . special projects. One of them is trying to encourage the um, the jumping, by breeding horses specifically for it. Um."

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. "I'm not entirely sure I understand."

"We still turn a profit, sir, not much of one but it's better than most breeding operations do, I daresay," she added quickly. "People aren't running their own stables any more, not with the space and whatnot. They need places to put their horses up and we can offer a better class of service than, like, Hobson's in the city. More space for the animals to be natural, you know?"

He waved a hand. "It's not important," he said, and it really wasn't. In a government where taxation cost more than it earned, any branch that earned a profit was a welcome one, and as long as it was being done legally what did it matter what it was? Hells, even some illegal branches were considered tolerable. "I just need an appropriate animal."

"Well, sir, we've had a good program going now for some time, crossing the race broodmares with some heavier breeds, trying to get athleticism and durability. We're a long ways off from being where we want looks-wise but I think we can still get what you're looking for, providing it doesn't have to look sharp."

"I don't think it matters," he shrugged.

"Right, then here's what we have, we keep them down the row a bit." She led the way to a block of stalls with animals in that looked decidedly heavier than the racehorses. "We call 'em warmbloods, on account of the hot race blood mixing with the cold workhorse blood."

"Fascinating," he said distractedly. He was vaguely wondering if he was going to have to look at the teeth. "And they jump?"

"We-ell . . ." She bobbed her head side-to-side for a minute while she thought. "Some of 'em do, yeah. Some of 'em are more pretty on the ground though, parade-type horses or fancy carriage horses, you know?" She gestured to the closest one. "This chestnut here's pretty good - she can jump a fair height if you ask her to but she's mean as a snake and a right firecracker to try and stick with." The horse, which Vetinari would have called 'brown' if asked, looked as irritated as its equine bone structure would allow.

"Perhaps not that one then," he said, figuring that should harm come to Sam due to a vengeful herbivore the boy's mother would probably take Drastic Action. "Do you have any that are, ah, not explosive?"

She cast her eye over the bunch. "A fair few, sir, a fair few. These types tend to be calm, but they tend to be dumb too."

"I'm assuming the person in question would want one that's fairly intelligent. As horses go, I mean," he added, feeling deep down inside that horses, while useful, were not a particularly intelligent brand of creature.

"Naturally, yes," Wendy said dismissively. "The trick, sir, is one that jumps, is bright enough, and won't kill you the first chance it gets."

"Is it?"

"You'd be amazed, sir." She strode up and down her row of charges, tapping her chin with one finger a she did so. "Let's see, let's see, not you," she said distractedly as a muzzle snatched out at some of the certainly delicious-looking hay still nestled in her hair. "How about - no, not after last week. Or . . ." She paused a sighed, apparently stumped, when her face lit up and she took off to the end of the row and out of the stable. Vetinari watched her go with a mild sense of alarm. He found himself alone in a barn full of animals that he didn't particularly like or understand, and had to keep batting the nose of a particularly enterprising horse away. Mercifully, Wendy returned shortly, yet another horse in tow. She was practically bouncing with excitement.

"I forgot all about this one, since she lives out in the fields!" she said happily, pulling the horse to a stop, apparently so that Vetinari could inspect it. "She's everything you're looking for - she's got a little bit of the devils in her but that's what makes her good, and you can bribe her into good behavior if you've got treats." Indeed, the horse was nosing around Wendy's pockets, sniffing as it did so. "Can jump the moon, loves to be ridden out, level-headed and sound as they come. Perfect, yeah? And she's pretty close to what we're looking for, looks-wise." She gestured to the horse.

Vetinari wasn't sure what Wendy saw when looking at the horse, though he understood that she saw something completely different than he did, being a person that saw dogs in a different light than most. What he saw when he looked at it was a brown horse, with white marks on its face and legs and a very food-oriented disposition.

"She's great, isn't she?" Wendy beamed as the mare deftly wriggled a treat out of the woman's pocket with her nose.

"She's got four legs and a tail," Vetinari conceded. "I'm afraid I don't know enough to say more than that."

"Well, sir, rest assured, she's a good one." The woman patted the horse on the neck. "I'll be sorry to see her go, but I assume she's for young Sam Vimes?" Her eyes twinkled. "He's been down here once or twice window-shopping, your Lordship. He's seen this mare more than once, and he managed to convince me to let him ride her a week ago."

"Huh," said Vetinari, because there really was nothing more to be said. "And he liked her, did he?"

"Very much so, sir."

And that, as far as Vetinari was concerned, was that. "Right, so, he can have this one then." He paused. "Do I have to pay for it or something?"

Wendy smirked. "No, sir, you already own her."

"Oh, right." He paused. "So what's its name?"

"Oyster."

He blinked. "You named it after a shellfish?"

"Trust me, she could have been worse off." Wendy pointed at the horse that had previously been attempting to molest the Patrician. "That's Buttress. He's called Butt for short."

"Naturally," Vetinari said faintly. "And I think, on that note, I will leave you to your duties. Consider the horse Sam's, although you probably shouldn't mention it until after Hogswatch."

"Of course, sir," Wendy said cheerfully. "He'll be so pleased."

"Uh, good." And with that, Vetinari headed back to his coach, making a mental note as he climbed inside and pulled away to increase the hay budget.

Completely, utterly mad.

--=--

Reviews will make me happy. And when I'm happy, my horse gets treats. Think of poor Lola, please.


End file.
